FOOTNOTES:

Third, and highest, we reach the Spiritual Kingdom, or the Kingdom of Heaven. What its characteristics are, relatively to any hypothetical higher Kingdom, necessarily remain unknown. That the Spiritual, in turn, may be the preparation for, and the prophecy of, something still higher is not impossible. But the very conception of a Fourth Kingdom transcends us, and if it exists, the Spiritual organism, by the analogy, must remain at present wholly dead to it.

The warrant for adding this Third Kingdom consists, as just stated, in the fact that there are organisms which from their peculiar origin, nature, and destiny cannot be fitly entered in either of the two Kingdoms now known to science. The Second Kingdom is proclaimed by the advent upon the stage of the First, ofonce-bornorganisms. The Third is ushered in by the appearance, among these once-born organisms, of forms of life which have been born again—twice-bornorganisms. The classification, therefore, is based, from the scientific side on certain facts of embryology and on the Law of Biogenesis; and from the theological side on certain facts of experience and on the doctrine of Regeneration. To those who hold either to Biogenesis or to Regeneration, there is no escape from a Third Kingdom.[98]

There is in this conception of a high and spiritual organism rising out of the highest point of the Organic Kingdom, in the hypothesis of the Spiritual Kingdom itself, a Third Kingdom following the Second in sequence as orderly as the Second follows the First, a Kingdom utilizing the materials of both the Kingdoms beneath it, continuing their laws, and, above all, accounting for these lower Kingdoms in a legitimate way and complementing them in the only known way—there is in all this a suggestion of the greatest of modern scientific doctrines, the Evolution hypothesis, too impressive to pass unnoticed. The strength of the doctrine of Evolution, at least in its broader outlines, is now such that its verdict on any biological question is a consideration of moment. Andif any further defence is needed for the idea of a Third Kingdom it may be found in the singular harmony of the whole conception with this great modern truth. It might even be asked whether a complete and consistent theory of Evolution does not really demand such a conception? Why should Evolution stop with the Organic? It is surely obvious that the complement of Evolution is Advolution, and the inquiry, Whence has all this system of things come, is, after all, of minor importance compared with the question, Whither does all this tend? Science, as such, may have little to say on such a question. And it is perhaps impossible, with such faculties as we now possess, to imagine an Evolution with a future as great as its past. So stupendous is the development from the atom to the man that no point can be fixed in the future as distant from what man is now as he is from the atom. But it has been given to Christianity to disclose the lines of a further Evolution. And if Science also professes to offer a further Evolution, not the most sanguine evolutionist will venture to contrast it, either as regards the dignity of its methods, the magnificence of its aims, or the certainty of its hopes, with the prospects of the Spiritual Kingdom. That Science has a prospect of some sort to hold out to man, is not denied. But its limits are already marked. Mr. Herbert Spencer, after investigating its possibilities fully, tells us, "Evolution has an impassable limit."[99]It is the distinct claim of the Third Kingdom that this limit is not final. Christianity opens a way to a further development—a development apart from which the magnificent past of Nature has been in vain, and without which Organic Evolution, in spite of the elaborateness of its processes and the vastness of its achievements, is simply a stupendouscul de sac. Far as nature carries on the task, vast as is the distance between the atom and the man, she has to lay down her tools whenthe work is just begun. Man, her most rich and finished product, marvelous in his complexity, all but Divine in sensibility, is to the Third Kingdom not even a shapeless embryo. The old chain of processes must begin again on the higher plane if there is to be a further Evolution. The highest organism of the Second Kingdom—simple, immobile, dead as the inorganic crystal, toward the sphere above—must be vitalized afresh. Then from a mass of all but homogeneous "protoplasm" the organism must pass through all the stages of differentiation and integration, growing in perfectness and beauty under the unfolding of the higher Evolution, until it reaches the Infinite Complexity, the Infinite Sensibility, God. So the spiritual carries on the marvelous process to which all lower Nature ministers, and perfects it when the ministry of lower Nature fails.

This conception of a further Evolution carries with it the final answer to the charge that, as regards morality, the Spiritual world has nothing to offer man that is not already within his reach. Will it be contended that a perfect morality is already within the reach of the natural man? What product of the organic creation has ever attained to the fullness of the stature of Him who is the Founder and Type of the Spiritual Kingdom? What do men know of the qualities enjoined in His Beatitudes, or at what value do they estimate them? Proved by results, it is surely already decided that on merely natural lines moral perfection is unattainable. And even Science is beginning to awaken to the momentous truth that Man, the highest product of the Organic Kingdom, is a disappointment. But even were it otherwise, if even in prospect the hopes of the Organic Kingdom could be justified, its standard of beauty is not so high, nor, in spite of the dreams of Evolution, is its guarantee so certain. The goal of the organisms of the Spiritual World is nothing less than this—to be "holy as He is holy, and pure as He is pure." And by the Law ofConformity to Type, their final perfection is secured. The inward nature must develop out according to its Type, until the consummation of oneness with God is reached.

These proposals of the Spiritual Kingdom in the direction of Evolution are at least entitled to be carefully considered by Science. Christianity defines the highest conceivable future for mankind. It satisfies the Law of Continuity. It guarantees the necessary conditions for carrying on the organism successfully, from stage to stage. It provides against the tendency to Degeneration. And finally, instead of limiting the yearning hope of final perfection to the organisms of a future age—an age so remote that the hope for thousands of years must still be hopeless—instead of inflicting this cruelty on intelligences mature enough to know perfection and earnest enough to wish it, Christianity puts the prize within immediate reach of man.

This attempt to incorporate the Spiritual Kingdom in the scheme of Evolution, may be met by what seems at first sight a fatal objection. So far from the idea of a Spiritual Kingdom being in harmony with the doctrine of Evolution, it may be said that it is violently opposed to it. It announces a new Kingdom starting off suddenly on a different plane and in direct violation of the primary principle of development. Instead of carrying the organic evolution further on its own lines, theology at a given point interposes a sudden and hopeless barrier—the barrier between the natural and the spiritual—and insists that the evolutionary process must begin again at the beginning. At this point, in fact, Nature actsper saltum. This is no Evolution, but a Catastrophe—such a Catastrophe as must be fatal to any consistent development hypothesis.

On the surface this objection seems final—but it is only on the surface. It arises from taking a too narrow view of what Evolution is. It takes evolution in zoology for Evolution as a whole.Evolution began, let us say, with some primeval nebulous mass in which lay potentially all future worlds. Under the evolutionary hand, the amorphous cloud broke up, condensed, took definite shape, and in the line of true development assumed a gradually increasing complexity. Finally there emerged the cooled and finished earth, highly differentiated, so to speak, complete and fully equipped. And what followed? Let it be well observed—a Catastrophe. Instead of carrying the process further, the Evolution, if this is Evolution, here also abruptly stops. A sudden and hopeless barrier—the barrier between the Inorganic and the Organic—interposes, and the process has to begin again at the beginning with the creation of Life. Here then is a barrier placed by Science at the close of the Inorganic similar to the barrier placed by Theology at the close of the Organic. Science has used every effort to abolish this first barrier, but there it still stands challenging the attention of the modern world, and no consistent theory of Evolution can fail to reckon with it. Any objection, then, to the Catastrophe introduced by Christianity between the Natural and Spiritual Kingdoms applies with equal force against the barrier which Science places between the Inorganic and the Organic. The reserve of Life in either case is a fact, and a fact of exceptional significance.

What then becomes of Evolution? Do these two great barriers destroy it? By no means. But they make it necessary to frame a larger doctrine. And the doctrine gains immeasurably by such an enlargement. For now the case stands thus: Evolution, in harmony with its own law that progress is from the simple to the complex, begins itself to pass toward the complex. The materialistic Evolution, so to speak, is a straight line. Making all else complex, it alone remains simple—unscientifically simple. But, as Evolution unfolds everything else, it is now seen to be itself slowly unfolding. The straight line is comingout gradually in curves. At a given point a new force appears deflecting it; and at another given point a new force appears deflecting that. These points are not unrelated points; these forces are not unrelated forces. The arrangement is still harmonious, and the development throughout obeys the evolutionary law in being from the general to the special, from the lower to the higher. What we are reaching, in short, is nothing less than theevolution of Evolution.

Now to both Science and Christianity, and especially to Science, this enrichment of Evolution is important. And, on the part of Christianity, the contribution to the system of Nature of a second barrier is of real scientific value. At first it may seem merely to increase the difficulty. But in reality it abolishes it. However paradoxical it seems, it is nevertheless the case that two barriers are more easy to understand than one—two mysteries are less mysterious than a single mystery. For it requires two to constitute a harmony. One by itself is a Catastrophe. But, just as the recurrence of an eclipse at different periods makes an eclipse no breach of Continuity; just as the fact that the astronomical conditions necessary to cause a Glacial Period will in the remote future again be fulfilled constitutes the Great Ice Age a normal phenomenon; so the recurrence of two periods associated with special phenomena of Life, the second higher, and by the law necessarily higher, is no violation of the principle of Evolution. Thus even in the matter of adding a second to the one barrier of Nature, the Third Kingdom may already claim to complement the Science of the Second. The overthrow of Spontaneous Generation has left a break in Continuity which continues to put Science to confusion. Alone, it is as abnormal and perplexing to the intellect as the first eclipse. But if the Spiritual Kingdom can supply Science with a companion-phenomenon, the most exceptional thing in the scientific sphere falls within thedomain of Law. This, however, is no more than might be expected from a Third Kingdom. True to its place as the highest of the Kingdoms, it ought to embrace all that lies beneath and give to the First and Second their final explanation.

How much more in the under-Kingdoms might be explained or illuminated upon this principle, however tempting might be the inquiry, we cannot turn aside to ask. But the rank of the Third Kingdom in the order of Evolution implies that it holds the key to much that is obscure in the world around—much that, apart from it, must always remain obscure. A single obvious instance will serve to illustrate the fertility of the method. What has this Kingdom to contribute to Science with regard to the Problem of the origin of Life itself? Taking this as an isolated phenomenon, neither the Second Kingdom, nor the Third apart from revelation, has anything to pronounce. But when we observe the companion-phenomenon in the higher Kingdom, the question is simplified. It will be disputed by none that the source of Life in the Spiritual World is God. And as the same Law of Biogenesis prevails in both spheres, we may reason from the higher to the lower and affirm it to be at least likely that the origin of life there has been the same.

There remains yet one other objection of a somewhat different order, and which is only referred to because it is certain to be raised by those who fail to appreciate the distinctions of Biology. Those whose sympathies are rather with Philosophy than with Science may incline to dispute the allocation of so high an organism as man to the merely vegetal and animal Kingdom. Recognizing the immense moral and intellectual distinctions between him and even the highest animal, they would introduce a third barrier between man and animal—a barrier even greater than that between the Inorganic and the Organic. Now, no science can be blind to these distinctions. The only question is whetherthey are of such a kind as to make it necessary to classify man in a separate Kingdom. And to this the answer of Science is in the negative. Modern Science knows only two Kingdoms—the Inorganic and the Organic. A barrier between man and animal there may be, but it is a different barrier from that which separates Inorganic from Organic. But even were this to be denied, and in spite of all science it will be denied, it would make no difference as regards the general question. It would merely interpose another Kingdom between the Organic and the Spiritual, the other relations remaining as before. Any one, therefore, with a theory to support as to the exceptional creation of the Human Race will find the present classification elastic enough for his purpose. Philosophy, of course, may propose another arrangement of the Kingdoms if it chooses. It is only contended that this is the order demanded by Biology. To add another Kingdom mid-way between the Organic and the Spiritual, could that be justified at any future time on scientific grounds, would be a mere question of further detail.

Studies in Classification, beginning with considerations of quality, usually end with a reference to quantity. And though one would willingly terminate the inquiry on the threshold of such a subject, the example of Revelation not less than the analogies of Nature press for at least a general statement.

The broad impression gathered from the utterances of the Founder of the Spiritual Kingdom is that the number of organisms to be included in it is to be comparatively small. The outstanding characteristic of the new Society is to be its selectness. "Many are called," said Christ, "but few are chosen." And when one recalls, on the one hand, the conditions of membership, and, on the other, observes the lives and aspirations of average men, the force of the verdict becomes apparent. In its bearing upon the general question, such a conclusion is not without suggestiveness. Here again is another evidence of the radicalnature of Christianity. That "few are chosen" indicates a deeper view of the relation of Christ's Kingdom to the world, and stricter qualifications of membership, than lie on the surface or are allowed for in the ordinary practice of religion.

The analogy of Nature upon this point is not less striking—it may be added, not less solemn. It is an open secret, to be read in a hundred analogies from the world around, that of the millions of possible entrants for advancement in any department of Nature the number ultimately selected for preferment is small. Here also "many are called and few are chosen." The analogies from the waste of seed, of pollen, of human lives, are too familiar to be quoted. In certain details, possibly, these comparisons are inappropriate. But there are other analogies, wider and more just, which strike deeper into the system of Nature. A comprehensive view of the whole field of Nature discloses the fact that the circle of the chosen slowly contracts as we rise in the scale of being. Some mineral, but not all, becomes vegetable; some vegetable, but not all, becomes animal; some animal, but not all, becomes human; some human, but not all, becomes Divine. Thus the area narrows. At the base is the mineral, most broad and simple; the spiritual at the apex, smallest, but most highly differentiated. So form rises above form, Kingdom above Kingdom.Quantity decreases as quality increases.

The gravitation of the whole system of nature toward quality is surely a phenomenon of commanding interest. And if among the more recent revelations of Nature there is one thing more significant for religion than another, it is the majestic spectacle of the rise of Kingdoms toward scarcer yet nobler forms, and simpler yet diviner ends. Of the early stage, the first development of the earth from the nebulous matrix of space, Science speaks with reserve. The second, the evolution of each individual from the simple protoplasmic cell to the formed adult, is proved. The still widerevolution, not of solitary individuals, but of all the individuals within each province—in the vegetal world from the unicellular cryptogam to the highest phanerogam, in the animal world from the amorphous amœba to Man—is at least suspected, the gradual rise of types being at all events a fact. But now, at last, we see the Kingdoms themselves evolving. And that supreme law which has guided the development from simple to complex in matter, in individual, in sub-Kingdom, and in Kingdom, until only two or three great Kingdoms remain, now begins at the beginning again, directing the evolution of these million-peopled worlds as if they were simple cells or organisms. Thus, what applies to the individual applies to the family, what applies to the family applies to the Kingdom, what applies to the Kingdom applies to the Kingdoms. And so, out of the infinite complexity there rises an infinite simplicity, the foreshadowing of a final unity, of that

"One God, one law, one element,And one far-off divine event,To which the whole creation moves."[100]

This is the final triumph of Continuity, the heart secret of Creation, the unspoken prophecy of Christianity. To Science, defining it as a working principle, this mighty process of amelioration is simplyEvolution. To Christianity, discerning the end through the means, it isRedemption. These silent and patient processes, elaborating, eliminating, developing all from the first of time, conducting the evolution from millennium to millennium with unaltering purpose and unfaltering power, are the early stages in the redemptive work—the unseen approach of that Kingdom whose strange mark is that it "cometh without observation." And these Kingdoms rising tier above tier in ever increasing sublimity and beauty, their foundations visibly fixed in the past, theirprogress, and the direction of their progress, being facts in Nature still, are the signs which, since the Magi saw His star in the East, have never been wanting from the firmament of truth, and which in every age with growing clearness to the wise, and with ever-gathering mystery to the uninitiated, proclaim that "the Kingdom of God is at hand."

Finis.

FOOTNOTES:[96]"Principles of Biology," p. 294.[97]"Principles of Biology," vol. ii. pp. 222, 223.[98]Philosophical classifications in this direction (see for instance Godet's "Old Testament Studies," pp. 2-40), owing to their neglect of the facts of Biogenesis can never satisfy the biologist—any more than the above will wholly satisfy the philosopher. Both are needed. Rothe, in his "Aphorisms," strikingly notes one point: "Es ist beachtenswerth, wie in der Schöpfung immer aus der Auflösung der nächst neideren Stufe die nächst höhere hervorgeht, so dass jene immer das Substrat zur Erzeugung dieser Kraft der schöpferischen Einwirkung bildet. (Wie es denn nicht anders sein kann bei einer Entwicklung der Kreatur aus sich selbst.) Aus den zersetzten Elementen erheben sich das Mineral, aus dem verwitterten Material die Pflanze, aus der verwesten Pflanze das Thier. So erhebt sich auch aus dem in die Elemente zurücksinkenden Materiellen Menschen der Geist, das geistige Geschöpf."—"Stille Stunden," p. 64.[99]"First Principles," p. 440.[100]"In Memoriam."

[96]"Principles of Biology," p. 294.

[97]"Principles of Biology," vol. ii. pp. 222, 223.

[98]Philosophical classifications in this direction (see for instance Godet's "Old Testament Studies," pp. 2-40), owing to their neglect of the facts of Biogenesis can never satisfy the biologist—any more than the above will wholly satisfy the philosopher. Both are needed. Rothe, in his "Aphorisms," strikingly notes one point: "Es ist beachtenswerth, wie in der Schöpfung immer aus der Auflösung der nächst neideren Stufe die nächst höhere hervorgeht, so dass jene immer das Substrat zur Erzeugung dieser Kraft der schöpferischen Einwirkung bildet. (Wie es denn nicht anders sein kann bei einer Entwicklung der Kreatur aus sich selbst.) Aus den zersetzten Elementen erheben sich das Mineral, aus dem verwitterten Material die Pflanze, aus der verwesten Pflanze das Thier. So erhebt sich auch aus dem in die Elemente zurücksinkenden Materiellen Menschen der Geist, das geistige Geschöpf."—"Stille Stunden," p. 64.

[99]"First Principles," p. 440.

[100]"In Memoriam."

Transcriber's Endnote:Two significant typographical errors have been corrected in the Greek text on Page263. The sentence originally read:"And Paul afterward carries out the classification consistently, making his entire system depend on it, and throughout arranging men, on the one hand asπυενματικός—spiritual, on the other asφυχικός—carnal, in terms of Christ's distinction."The amended text replacesπυενματικόςwithπνευματικός, whilstφυχικόςnow reads asψυχικός.

Transcriber's Endnote:

Two significant typographical errors have been corrected in the Greek text on Page263. The sentence originally read:

"And Paul afterward carries out the classification consistently, making his entire system depend on it, and throughout arranging men, on the one hand asπυενματικός—spiritual, on the other asφυχικός—carnal, in terms of Christ's distinction."

The amended text replacesπυενματικόςwithπνευματικός, whilstφυχικόςnow reads asψυχικός.

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